A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Written by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell

Narrated by Alexander Spencer and Patrick Tull

In 1773, an unlikely pair-a dominant figure of English literature and a young lawyer-set out on horseback to follow roads and cattle-trails across the Highlands to the Western Islands of Scotland. Their conversation and accounts are filled with curious detail, flashing wit and fascinating encounters with the high and low of the country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9781449802424

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) was an English writer – a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. His works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, an influential annotated edition of Shakespeare's plays, and the widely read tale Rasselas, the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and most notably, A Dictionary of the English Language, the definitive British dictionary of its time.

Reviews for A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

[pepys_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I liked best this book when it described the beginning of the journey in the Highlands. But Johnson's verbosity was a bit tiring afterwards, & I kept looking to the number of pages left. I found interesting Johnson's describing the highlanders just as first encounters with tribes in Papua New Guinea were described afterwards. They even carried with them small gifts for the locals which were benevolently distributed.Emphatic as he was, Johnson aroused sufficient interest in me to making me want to put my steps one day in his' & Boswell's in the small islands they visited off Mull.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating account by Johnson of his trip through Scotland with Boswell (who also wrote up an account).Full of information about the life and times of the Highlands in the late 1700s. Insights like the fact that the lack of roads meant that the may not have been a single wheeled vehicle for transporting goods in the entire highlands of that era!Read May 2017

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Samuel Johnson being the creator of the first English dictionary, I expected this journal to be a challenging and thorough chronicle. At least to begin with it seems surprisingly the contrary, sparse in general descriptions and more often fastening onto some specific detail or aspect (local education, the clergy, etc.) I also found it to be full of platitudes. Once he gets to the isles, his real destination of interest, he becomes much more thorough. Johnson's story is rather dry but there were interesting bits to glean throughout every so many pages: one standout was his commentary on ruins that pass into nothing, after which all is forgotten - a troubling note in a journal written in the 1770s. The British disarmed Scotland after Culloden and Johnson provides enough coverage of the results to give anti-gun lobbyists a good lead. He journeys past Loch Ness with not a mention of the monster (no one "saw it" until 1933), but describes the Second Sight and other local legends.I enjoyed following his journey with an atlas (although I can't seem to google up a reliable image that traces the route), and if I lived in the area I'd be tempted to follow at least a portion of his steps and see the contrast with today.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first book by Johnson was good the second by Boswell was better, at least more humourous, with the recording of the sayings of Johnson. I thought it was fascinating to travel with these two gentleman during the time when there were no trains and tours were pretty well rustic. The time in which they travelled too, when Scotland or Old Scotland was disappearing, and the peaceful and the more refined Scotland we know today was taking its place.